Woolworth's gone! It feels as though a great hole has suddenly opened up in the ground. I have memories of shopping in Woollies going back six decades.
The mighty W took the decisive step to destroy the tranquility of Oxford. In 1955(?) they applied for planning permission to put a huge superstore in Cornmarket. The City Council said no, but the Minister of Housing, Harold Macmillan overruled them. And then came Marks and Sparks, then Selfridges, and soon the city centre was crowded with shoppers. Having done the damage, Woollies sold up in the 1980s and made room for the Clarendon Shopping Centre, followed by the Westgate Centre, now to be expanded. It's hard to move for the crowds.
All that happened just before the bypasses were built, after which the old centre could have been left as an academic and tourist precinct, a pedestrian and cyclist paradise with minimal vehicle access. A new commercial centre could have been sited near the eastern by-pass. So much for market forces as a method of town planning! Macmillan was rewarded by being elected Chancellor of the University. How we love those who torment us! Still, I forgive him, because he got us out of Suez and he told off Maggie Thatcher for 'selling off the family silver'.
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Monday, 24 November 2008
Bank's Lament
The little ditty I wrote in September 2007 is wearing well, except I had no idea that they'd want trillions from us:
THE BANK'S LAMENT
Oh dear oh dear, what shall we do?
Too much we lent, too much you spent.
We helped ourselves and helped you too.
Please understand how well we meant.
But now we want it back from you.
THE BANK'S LAMENT
Oh dear oh dear, what shall we do?
Too much we lent, too much you spent.
We helped ourselves and helped you too.
Please understand how well we meant.
But now we want it back from you.
Friday, 21 November 2008
Boom and bust
Perhaps macroeconomics can be reduced to a few propositions: booms result in busts; the pain of busts is greater than the pleasure of booms; therefore everything should be done to prevent booms from getting any bigger than they have to. Ever since governments discovered that they could influence the economy, they have done the opposite: they have tried to make the booms get as big as possible. In the 1930s, when the world population was just over 2 billion, Keynes said it was all right to increase debt in order to go from bust to boom.
Now we realize that it isn't just the human world that suffers from the cycle of boom and bust. The whole planet is groaning under the weight of human demand. Back in 1972, when the world population was less than 4 billion, the Club of Rome report 'Limits to Growth' warned of the danger. President Jimmy Carter commissioned a study, 'Global 2000' to suggest how the US government should respond. But he was voted out in 1980, and we began 28 years of crazy efforts to grow. Now, with the world population at 6.7 billion - 220% bigger than for Keynes and 76% bigger than for the Club of Rome - we are rewarded with the biggest bust for eighty years. When will we ever learn?
Now we realize that it isn't just the human world that suffers from the cycle of boom and bust. The whole planet is groaning under the weight of human demand. Back in 1972, when the world population was less than 4 billion, the Club of Rome report 'Limits to Growth' warned of the danger. President Jimmy Carter commissioned a study, 'Global 2000' to suggest how the US government should respond. But he was voted out in 1980, and we began 28 years of crazy efforts to grow. Now, with the world population at 6.7 billion - 220% bigger than for Keynes and 76% bigger than for the Club of Rome - we are rewarded with the biggest bust for eighty years. When will we ever learn?
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
A mockery of law
The Labour Government has created 3000 new crimes, which is one reason why Britain has a higher percentage of its population in jail than any other European Union country. Still, the latest proposed crime will not put many more in prison. It is proposed to make it illegal for men to buy sex from trafficked women. If the police know which women are trafficked, why don't they arrest the traffickers? And if they don't know, how will they watch trafficked women to see who buys sex from them? Imagine the conversation between client and prostitute: "Excuse me, madam, have you been trafficked?"; "Yes!" (or rather "Da!"); "In that case I cannot buy sex from you." Alternatively: "Excuse me sir, may I have your name and address, so that I can report you to the police after you have bought sex from me?" It will be just like the fox-hunting bill, impossible to enforce. It will bring the law further into disrepute.
The trafficking of women is just one more example of the evils that result from the wealth and income gap between countries. Women only want to come to Britain because here they can earn much more, even in menial jobs, than they can at home. And British men can only afford to spend grotesque sums on prostitutes because incomes in Britain are high enough to pay for much more than the essentials of life. Once our economy has shrunk to a sustainable size, we should keep it there instead of making huge eforts to make it grow again.
The trafficking of women is just one more example of the evils that result from the wealth and income gap between countries. Women only want to come to Britain because here they can earn much more, even in menial jobs, than they can at home. And British men can only afford to spend grotesque sums on prostitutes because incomes in Britain are high enough to pay for much more than the essentials of life. Once our economy has shrunk to a sustainable size, we should keep it there instead of making huge eforts to make it grow again.
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Greedy Twenty?
The G20 meeting has had a good press, although it produced no new vision for the world economy. The leaders of the world's 20 largest economies said hardly anything about the suffering of people in the dozens of small economies with abysmally low national income. Americans and Europeans are currently consuming several times their fair share of the planet's sustainable resources, while half of Asia and most of Africa receive only a fraction of their share. Only a transfer of wealth and income from rich to poor can remedy the situation, yet the top twenty think only of maintaining or resuming their growth.
A better view of Rahm Emanuel, Obama's White House Chief of Staff, from James Zogby, President of the Arab-American Institute: he points out that Emanuel was the architect of the signing of the Oslo Agreement on the White House lawn in 1993. He is well liked by Arab-American members of Congress, and his talent for fixing things there will be much needed in pushing through the new Administration's programme. Remember Lyndon Johnson, derided as a 'wheeler-dealer' when Kennedy picked him for V.P. in 1960? After Kennedy's death, it was he who managed to push the civil rights legislation through Congress, without which we would not have President-elect Obama. In fact Johnson would be remembered as one of America's greatest presidents if he had not inherited the Vietnam War.
A better view of Rahm Emanuel, Obama's White House Chief of Staff, from James Zogby, President of the Arab-American Institute: he points out that Emanuel was the architect of the signing of the Oslo Agreement on the White House lawn in 1993. He is well liked by Arab-American members of Congress, and his talent for fixing things there will be much needed in pushing through the new Administration's programme. Remember Lyndon Johnson, derided as a 'wheeler-dealer' when Kennedy picked him for V.P. in 1960? After Kennedy's death, it was he who managed to push the civil rights legislation through Congress, without which we would not have President-elect Obama. In fact Johnson would be remembered as one of America's greatest presidents if he had not inherited the Vietnam War.
Saturday, 15 November 2008
Mabruk, Baruch!
B-R-K is found in Hebrew too, most notably in the name Baruch - equivalent to Arabic mabruk, which means 'congratulations' (on your blessed good fortune!). Baruch ben Neriyah was the name of Jeremiah's secretary, who helped to edit and possibly in part to write sections of several books of the Bible - Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel I and II, Kings I and Jeremiah. One of the most extraordinary archaeological finds ever made was a clay seal impression of this Baruch. Nothing to do with Obama of course, but a nice reminder of the close kinship of Hebrew and Arabic and the respective peoples who speak them.
Perhaps I should add my personal theory that the ten 'lost tribes' of Israel are to be found among the Palestinians. After the destruction of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria, there is no reason to suppose that the rural population fled. They were peasants attached to their fields, and the Assyrians needed them to pay taxes. According to the Bible, many of them were already polytheists before the Kingdom collapsed. They later converted to Christianity, and still later many of them became Muslims. Their descendants are the cousins of the Israelis. It's time they were treated as equals in their own country.
Perhaps I should add my personal theory that the ten 'lost tribes' of Israel are to be found among the Palestinians. After the destruction of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria, there is no reason to suppose that the rural population fled. They were peasants attached to their fields, and the Assyrians needed them to pay taxes. According to the Bible, many of them were already polytheists before the Kingdom collapsed. They later converted to Christianity, and still later many of them became Muslims. Their descendants are the cousins of the Israelis. It's time they were treated as equals in their own country.
Barack Hussein
There is much discussion of Obama's first name. B-R-K is an ancient Semitic root, the basic meaning of which is 'knee' or 'kneel'. The sense of a 'blessing' presumably arose because the recipient should give thanks on bended knees. In Arabic baraka is the special quality of a saint which enables him or her to work wonders. Barack will certainly need lots of it, with a virtually bankrupt treasury.
Hussein was Muhammad's grandson, the younger of two sons born to his daughter Fatima and his cousin Ali. The name is specially popular with Shia Muslims, for whom Hussein was the Third Imam (second for some Ismailis). He was killed at Kerbala in Iraq in 680 C.E., when he was trying to raise a rebellion against the Sunni Caliph. This was the martyrdom commemorated by Shiites on Ashura, the 10th day of the Muslim year - January 7th next time.
Hussein was Muhammad's grandson, the younger of two sons born to his daughter Fatima and his cousin Ali. The name is specially popular with Shia Muslims, for whom Hussein was the Third Imam (second for some Ismailis). He was killed at Kerbala in Iraq in 680 C.E., when he was trying to raise a rebellion against the Sunni Caliph. This was the martyrdom commemorated by Shiites on Ashura, the 10th day of the Muslim year - January 7th next time.
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